An fbi tip and a fourday manhunt. The Military Heads to the border. The Biden Administration is sending 1,500 unarmed active duty troops to help out at the Southern Border, not to do law enfo enforcement, ahead of an expected surge next week. Good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell in new york. U. S. Officials are looking into the provocative but unverified russian accusation that ukraine attempted to assassinate Vladimir Putin overnight. With a drone strike on the kremlin. The kremlin saying that its Defense Systems destroyed two drones over putins recollection residence but he was not home. Ukraine insists they wage an exclusively defensive war and calling it a trick. Some experts agree, cautioning the claims could be a possible false flag used to justify further escalation against ukraine ahead of tomorrows victory day sell bra celebratio square. U. S. Officials tell us the u. S. Had no warning. At a World Press Freedom day, Secretary Of State blinken expressing his doubts ukraine was involved. First, i have seen the reports. I cant in any way validate them. We dont know. Second, i would take anything coming out of the kremlin with a very large shaker of salt. Lets see. We will see what the facts are. If ukraine decided to strike back in russian territory, the United States would not criticize that . These are decisions for ukraine to make. An advisor to president zelenskyy offered another possible explanation, suggesting local Resistance Forces inside russia could be responsible. Forces clearly loyal to ukraine. We start with Richard Engel and with me is admiral James Stavridis. What do we know about the videos . You have been looking at videos. How are officials trying to verify the claims . Reporter president zelenskyy was in finland today, said we did not attack putin. We leave that to the tribunal. Ukrainian Officials Say it was a false flag operation. The russians did this in order to justify some retaliaretaliat escalate the conflict further. Perhaps to bring the fighting to kyiv, to the president ial palace in kyiv. Asked why putin would want to do this or why russia would want to do this, zelenskyy responded, putin needs to motivate his people. He has no victories. These are the official explanations. The videos are interesting. Particularly this video right now, that claims to show the actual impact strike, when this small drone is coming close to the dome in the kremlin and then, according to a statement from the kremlin, was blown up by electronic defenses not causing any significant damage. Clearly not hurting or killing putin, because putin was not even in moscow at the time, according also to the kremlin. You asked about the videos. Most videos when they come out online, and our social Media Verification Team have been pouring through the videos for the last several hours, generally what happens is theres a video that comes out, and then they spread quickly across the internet as people share it, repost it, repost it and they go nuclear or viral. Thats when they are doctored or changed in some way. What happened in this case is there was this first video at 2 37 moscow time. It showed the aftermath of the attack. I see you have a graphic. This first video came out. It showed a little bit of smoke. It was taken from a building called the embankment house, not far from the kremlin. Then things went quiet. A 12hour gap elapsed when there were no videos. This initial video did not get a lot of traction. Right around 3 00, several videos started emerging showing the alleged aftermath and also showing the impact at the time. As these new videos came out in an apparent coordinated way, that is when the statements came out from the kremlin saying that kyiv was responsible, that this was an attempted assassination of Vladimir Putin. It was not an organic spread across the internet. Instead, we saw a video emerge, then silence, and then other videos put out on social media, which were then used to justify these statements put out by the kremlin. Also something interesting, in the video you are playing right now. If you go back to the first one, the clearest of the strike itself, you can see two people climbing up the scaffolding of the dome. What they were doing at 2 30 in the morning climbing up the scaffold is unclear. They react in a way which suggests something may have happened. It could be doctored. We dont know. You see what looks like two people climbing up that scaffolding reacting in a way. If you look on the other side of the screen, and once you see it, you can sort of never unsee it, it seems this video was taken by someone who was filming a security camera. Theres a reflection off of this. On the opposite side of the screen you can see what looks like cabinets, someone taking the video who comes in and out of screen. The video itself is clear. Then you can see someone filming the screen with their camera themselves. It seems it was more of a release of videos than an organic spread across the internet. Wow. Richard engel, thats a lot of information. Admiral stavridis is here with me to unpack it. It does seem to create the possibility of doctored video. The time line is suspicious, to say nothing of the situation. The bottom line is that it would be so provocative and it could justify a major retaliation. We have seen an escalating attack in the last couple of days. Ukraine has been told over and over by the u. S. And by nato more importantly, not to cross that borderline, not that they have in the past. Lets start with the fact that putin has been lying now for 15 months. Basically everything coming out of the kremlin has been a lie from were not going to invade, these are just exercises, to there are nazis in kyiv, the war criminal behavior. Its a context of lying. I think thats where you begin. Secondly, i think as you look at these videos, it does appear to be kind of a coordinated i feel like we are in the Jfk Assassination analyzing video frame by frame. What it smacks of to me, andrea, is vietnam and the Gulf Of Tonken Incident which the United States used to escalate the conflict. Lyndon johnson did famously. My feel at this minute recognizing we dont know everything, we will learn more many time. U. S. Intel is pulling this apart. As i sit here right now, i think false flag. I think it will be followed by a pretty strong level of military strikes from moscow. Richard, there have been in the past incidents by ukrainian supporters inside russia. One which was an assassination against a prominent woman connected to a strong supporter of the kremlin. They have had operatives inside russia. They have not done anything we know of in the past as aggressive as a drone attack. Reporter they have come out very the ukrainians have come out strongly and said that they were not responsible for this. They have come out and said that they only conduct operations inside ukrainian territory. Thats not exactly true. There have been some crossborder incidents. There was the attack on the bridge in crimea. Thats more complicated, because that is, according to ukrainians, to the United States, to most countries around the world, occupied ukrainian territory that was illegally annexed by russia. Even in that attack, the bridge attack linking mainland russia to occupied crimea, the ukrainians denied it with a bit of a wink and a nod. They said, we werent responsible but whoever did carried it out with a great deal of professionalism. In this case, they are coming out emphatically and saying, this wasnt us. We didnt do it. It will would be counterproductive, hurt our relations and allow russia to escalate this conflict in a radical way. Going back to Admiral Stavridis point, some Opposition Media operating outside of russia report that longrange bombers are being mobilized for a potential retaliation against kyiv. No verification on that. Singlesourced, unnamed, but theres that report. A critical time to both of you when president xi just called zelenskyy and is sending a highlevel envoy to ukraine. There was some hope the one positive thing, even though he is a putin person, very close to putin, that maybe he would have some influence and could resolve this gridlock to chinas advantage, diplomatically. Joining us now is former u. S. Ambassador to russia michael mcfaul. Michael, we shouldnt reach any conclusions at all. None of us will. There have been false flags in the past. There have. You are right, we dont know what this is. I want to be careful. I dont know if its a false flag or not. We may never know, by the way. What i do know, it was not an Assassination Attempt on Vladimir Putin. I think we need to be Crystal Clear about this. This drone did not have that military capacity to blow up anything. Everybody needs to remember, Vladimir Putin does not live in the kremlin. Like our president lives at white house. He lives an hour outside of town. This is 3 00 a. M. Whoever was doing this was being extra careful to not threaten the life of Vladimir Putin. Admiral stavridis, militarily the significance to nato you are a former commander. Nato has been very clear about not wanting to precipitate their engagement with russia going back against nato countries. Indeed. Lets also be clear that putin may seize on this to try and escalate in some way. But frankly, he doesnt have many means of escalation other than a significant air campaign. Thats what im worried about. I can guarantee the pentagon is thinking about, how can we upgrade air defenses . How can we help ukraine . Thats a very important part of this. Its unfolding in real time. You can imagine, mike mcfaul, whats going on in the white house. I want to touch base with you on something you know so well, which is getting prisoners out. Its World Press Freedom day. Its now five weeks that Evan Gershkovich has been in jail and accused of spying. No consular contact for the last couple weeks. Very tragic. Its horrible whats happened to him. And the other americans wrongly imprisoned in russia as hostages. Evan gershkovich was arrested not just to trade for some russian criminal here in the United States or in a european country. He was arrested to deter independent reporting inside russia. Thats the enemy of Vladimir Putin, the truth is the enemy of Vladimir Putin. So i think this had the double affect of picking up another american, but two, making it more difficult for americans and russians, for that matter, journalists to think about the kind of reporting they do inside of russia. Yeah. I should point out the week before last i think there was a visit from the ambassador, but its been they have been requesting it and its been denied in the last couple of days at least. Richard engel, admiral James Stavridis and ambassador mike mcfaul, thank you. Up next, the price you pay. More moves from the Federal Reserve expected later today to curb inflation. What it means for the markets and the rising price of everything when Andrea Mitchell reports is back in 60 seconds. Dont go away. You are watching msnbc. Away. You are watching Msnbc Hydrates better than the expensive stuff i dont live here, so im taking this and whatevers in the back. Its already sold in the us. But im not taking any chances. The uks 1 skincare has crossed the pond. At pnc bank, the uks 1 skincare you can find us in big cities and small towns across the us, where our focus is to always support the people who live and work there. Because you call these communities home, and we do too. Pnc bank. Representative sorry, i didnt get that. Oh buddy you need a hug. You also need consumer cellular. Get the exact same coverage as the nations leading carriers and 100 us based customer support. Starting at 20. Consumer cellular. Do you struggle with occasional nerve aches in your hands or feet . Try Nervive Nerve relief from the worlds number one nerve care company. Nervive contains ala to relieve nerve aches, and bcomplex vitamins to fortify healthy nerves. Try nervive. And, try nervive pain relieving rollon. The Federal Reserve is expected to raise the Interest Rate about you a quarter point today, 25 basis points. The tenth consecutive hike to keep inflation under control. It hopes without tipping the economy into a recession. This comes as there are concerns about weakness in the Banking Sector after three u. S. Banks collapsed requiring the government to intervene and jp morgan to step in and buy those assets. Every day the u. S. Is getting closer to a possible economic disaster. A catastrophe if congress and the white house cannot prevent default. That brings us to the debt ceiling. Joining me now is jack lute, former Treasury Secretary under president obama. Former Budget Director and his former chief of staff, top economic advisor. Its good to see you again. Thank you very much. I know deja vu all over again. How did we get into this mess . How do we get out of the mess . With the president saying, no talks on anything linking budget cuts to the debt ceiling. Speaker mccarthy saying, no deal. Mitch mcconnell today saying, its up to them. We will pass anything they agree to. Its good to be with you. I wish it was a different suggest. I know. To be clear, what the white house said is you cant negotiate with a gun to your head over the debt limit and have the risk of default if the parties cant come together. In 2011, when i was Budget Director, in 2013 when i was Treasury Secretary, we went through this. We learned, you can get close to the line and even an accident can push you into default. Which would be a disaster. Its a question of is it bad or worse. Theres no good outcome to default. At the same time, the administration has made clear that they are ready to have a negotiation over Fiscal Policy. That needs, in my view, to begin as soon as possible. I was heartened the president called the leaders to the white house next week. I hope they can find a pathway to extending the debt limit and then negotiating Fiscal Policy, which is what you do, particularly when you have divided government. I think its a hard path ahead. The political situation is different than it has ever been. It reached a level of polarization that is even high compared to the days we thought it couldnt get any worse. These fights, these deadlocks are very expensive. In 2011, the Credit Rating of the United States, the faith of people in the u. S. Government, in the confidence full confidence of the u. S. Government was downgraded. It cost 1. 3 billion just to get that close to default. To be clear, as you said, that was coming close to default. If we actually defaulted, that was based on the conclusion that Standard Poors reached was that our political system was broken. Not that we were a credit risk, if we default, thats a different level of risk. We are seeing the pricing seep into the system with less demand for treasuries that are going to mature during the window of risk and rates are higher in that period. Every day you get closer, that gets more so. The cost of 1. 3 billion is just a drop in the bucket to what it will cost if we actually default. What would it cost . It depends how much debt rolled over and how long higher rates were to go forward. Its not hard to get to numbers that are tens of billions of dollars in terms of what the cost could be. Every billion dollars you spend on a manufactured political crisis is just money you have burnt. At a time when the focus really should be on making real Fiscal Policy decisions, its just simply wasting money. The situation is that Speaker Mccarthy managed to squeak through this bill going nowhere. It was 217215. He got them to agree to that. Theyre not going to agree he needs democrats to make something happen. Or with this Discharge Petition that the democrats have, they need republicans. Neither side is giving. The substance of what the house passed last week is not what you would pass if your goal was to reach an agreement across the aisle. It was very extreme. They say they are freezing spending. When you do the math, if you freeze the overall level of spending, but you dont cut defense and veterans, you are cutting Everything Else by a third. Thats not a small decision. That means for a student on grants, losing 1,000. These are big, big numbers. You add to that putting work requirements on food stamps and medicaid, repealing the principal accomplishment of the first two years on Global Climate change, you think about that against what raising the debt ceiling is. Raising the debt ceiling is paying the bills for everything you have done, including the tax cuts in 2017 which werent paid for. Its not a reasonable demand. Its going to have to get to a negotiation. Its going to have to get to a negotiation over something that parties that dont view the world the same way can work thro